This edited book explores the use of technology to enable us to visualize the life sciences in a more meaningful and engaging way. It will enable those interested in visualization techniques to gain a better understanding of the applications that can be used in visualization, imaging and analysis, education, engagement and training. The reader will also be able to learn about the use of visualization techniques and technologies for the historical and forensic settings.

Just a few years ago, virtual reality was regarded as more a toy than a tool. Today, however, it is becoming the enabling technology for man-machine communications. The rapid development of graphics hardware and soft­ ware makes its application possible. Besides building walkthroughs and landscape fly-overs with very realistic visual effects, we can recognize the trend toward industrial applications. This is because of the emerging need for tools for rapid product development. Especially in the aeronautical and automotive industries, companies have began to investigate and develop virtual reality tools for their own needs in co-operation with research or­ ganizations. In co-operation with the Fraunhofer Institute for Computer Graphics (IGD), the Computer Graphics Center (ZGDV) in Darmstadt established the German working group on virtual reality in 1993 as a forum for infor­ mation exchange between industry and research. German researchers, system developers, and industrial users have met several times in Darm­ stadt at the Computer Graphics Center. In these meetings they discussed the essential issues inherent in applying virtual reality to industrial appli­ cations and exchanged their latest research results and experiences.

The Seventh International Symposium of Robotics Research was held in Herrsching near Munich, Germany, from October 21 to 24, 1995, the first to be organized following the renewal undergone by the International Foundation of Robotics Research (IFRR) during the preceding Symposium (Hidden Valley, October 1993). A board of eighteen officers was appointed: Suguru Arimoto (Tokyo University) Ruzena Bajcsy (University of Pennsylvania) Robert Bolles (SRI International) Mike Brady (Oxford University) Paolo Dario (Pisa University, Italy) Joris De Schutter (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium) Olivier Faugeras (INRIA, France) Georges Giralt (LAAS-CNRS, Fra~ce), Secretary Gerd Hirzinger (DFVLR, Germany) Hirochika Inoue (Tokyo University), President-elect Ray Jarvis (Monash University, Australia) Takeo Kanade (Carnegie Mellon University) Hirofumi Miura (Tokyo University) Richard Paul (University of Pennsylvania), President Marc Raibert (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) Bernie Roth (Stanford University) Yoshiaki Shirai (Osaka University) Tsuneo Yoshikawa (Kyoto University) It was our commitment to bring together active, leading robotics researchers from academia, government, and industry, with the ambitious objective to assess the state of Advanced Robotics and to discuss future research directions.

This book provides extensive research into the use of augmented reality in the three interconnected and overlapping fields of the tourism industry, museum exhibitions, and cultural heritage. It is written by a virtual team of 50 leading researchers and practitioners from 16 countries around the world.

This book describes the most recent strategies for the digitalization of railway sector that bring new challenges for the construction, operation, and maintenance of railway infrastructures. These strategies involve the development and application of new technologies and methodologies to enhance the sustainability and resilience of railway infrastructures particularly under extreme climate and operational events. In particular, the digital transformation involves the use of digital twins, augmented and virtual reality, forecast capabilities, risk and life-cycle analysis, cybersecurity, unmanned technologies for monitoring and inspection, computer vision, AI, risk and disaster management, among others. Presently, the literature is lacking a contribution that provides general and foundational knowledge across these and other topics. Therefore, this book provides valuable information for researchers, students, and professionals in railway engineering that want to develop their knowledge and skills in this field.

This is the first volume in the Cognitive Computation Trends book series, summarising our understanding on the neural correlate of memory, perception-representation, action, language, emotion and consciousness and their mutual interactions.